{"id":63290,"date":"2023-01-05T16:40:52","date_gmt":"2023-01-05T16:40:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2023\/01\/05\/pentagon-says-it-will-reopen-weapons-testing-reports-to-public\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T00:47:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T00:47:36","slug":"pentagon-says-it-will-reopen-weapons-testing-reports-to-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/pentagon\/2023\/01\/05\/pentagon-says-it-will-reopen-weapons-testing-reports-to-public\/","title":{"rendered":"Pentagon says it will reopen weapons testing reports to public"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2015 Amid congressional pressure, the Pentagon says its next annual report detailing the shortfalls and progress of the Pentagon\u2019s weapons programs will be <\/b>made public in full.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pentagon\u2019s director of operational test and evaluation office<\/a> reversed course after drawing fire from Congress and transparency advocates for relegating information about failures of the F-35 fighter and other major weapons programs to a \u201ccontrolled unclassified\u201d edition last year for Congress and internal Defense Department use only.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response to a Defense News query, the Pentagon said the DOT&E office will release in late January an \u201cunclassified, publicly releasable report,\u201d as it did prior to 2022. \u201cAs a result, yes it will, qualitatively, be more like the 2020 version,\u201d released in 2021, which included critical details, Lt. Cdr. Tim Gorman, a Pentagon spokesman, said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reports provide lawmakers and taxpayers a rare <\/b>window into the performance of some of the Pentagon\u2019s costliest programs. In years past, they have contained detailed assessments about the deficiencies and progress of the military\u2019s most problem-plagued acquisitions, but lawmakers and advocates charged last year the Pentagon\u2019s top tester had excluded meaningful information from the public version.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It remains to be seen what details DOT&E will include in its next report, but the Project on Government Oversight\u2019s Dan Grazier on Thursday greeted the news with a mix of optimism and skepticism. A return to the DOT&E\u2019s longstanding practice of releasing a detailed public report, he said, would restore some transparency and public accountability, as the federal government more broadly trends in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m very interested to see what the report looks like because there\u2019s a very good chance that the unclassified version of the testing report will look like the one we saw last year\u201d and lack crucial details, Grazier said. A return to more comprehensive public disclosures would mean \u201cbeing able to exert public pressure on the services, on Congress, on defense contractors to deliver weapons systems that are effective and suitable to warfighters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grazier last year obtained and made public the version of the report labeled \u201ccontrolled unclassified information,\u201d a designation that falls short of classification but still requires limits on how a document can be distributed. Among the findings were that lagging availability rates, flareups of new software problems, and a stubborn number of open deficiencies in 2021 plagued the troubled and repeatedly delayed multibillion-dollar F-35 fighter program.<\/p>\n\n\n\t